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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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BY THE ROADSIDE.
A BOSTON BALLAD.
(1854.)
TO get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early, |
Here's a good place at the corner, I must stand and see the show. |
Clear the way there Jonathan! |
Way for the President's marshal—way for the government cannon! |
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons, (and the apparitions
copiously tumbling.)
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I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will play
Yankee Doodle.
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How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops! |
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town. |
A fog follows, antiques of the same come limping, |
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and
bloodless.
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Why this is indeed a show—it has called the dead out of the
earth!
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The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see! |
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear! |
Cock'd hats of mothy mould—crutches made of mist! |
Arms in slings—old men leaning on young men's shoulders. |
What troubles you Yankee phantoms? what is all this chattering
of bare gums?
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Does the ague convulse your limbs? do you mistake your crutches
for firelocks and level them?
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If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President's
marshal,
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If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon. |
For shame old maniacs—bring down those toss'd arms, and let
your white hair be,
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Here gape your great grandsons, their wives gaze at them from
the windows,
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See how well dress'd, see how orderly they conduct themselves. |
Worse and worse—can't you stand it? are you retreating? |
Is this hour with the living too dead for you? |
To your graves—back—back to the hills old limpers! |
I do not think you belong here anyhow. |
But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it
is, gentlemen of Boston?
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I will whisper it to the Mayor, he shall send a committee to
England,
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They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the
royal vault,
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Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-
clothes, box up his bones for a journey,
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Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied
clipper,
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Up with your anchor—shake out your sails—steer straight toward
Boston bay.
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Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the govern-
ment cannon,
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Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession,
guard it with foot and dragoons.
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This centre-piece for them; |
Look, all orderly citizens—look from the windows, women! |
The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that
will not stay,
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Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the
skull.
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You have got your revenge, old buster—the crown is come to its
own, and more than its own.
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Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan—you are a made
man from this day,
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You are mighty cute—and here is one of your bargains. |
EUROPE,
The 72d and 73d Years of These States.
SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, |
Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself, |
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats
of kings.
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O aching close of exiled patriots' lives! |
Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh. |
And you, paid to defile the People—you liars, mark! |
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, |
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his
simplicity the poor man's wages,
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For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh'd
at in the breaking,
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Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge,
or the heads of the nobles fall;
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The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings. |
But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction, and the
frighten'd monarchs come back,
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Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, |
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant. |
Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape, |
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in
scarlet folds,
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Whose face and eyes none may see, |
Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm, |
One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of a
snake appears.
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Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of
young men,
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The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are
flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,
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And all these things bear fruits, and they are good. |
Those corpses of young men, |
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc'd by
the gray lead,
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Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaugh-
ter'd vitality.
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They live in other young men O kings! |
They live in brothers again ready to defy you, |
They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted. |
Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed for free-
dom, in its turn to bear seed,
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Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the
snows nourish.
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Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, |
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling,
cautioning.
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Liberty, let others despair of you—I never despair of you. |
Is the house shut? is the master away? |
Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching, |
He will soon return, his messengers come anon. |
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A HAND-MIRROR.
HOLD it up sternly—see this it sends back, (who is it? is it
you?)
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Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth, |
No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy
step,
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Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, |
A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh, |
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, |
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, |
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, |
Words babble, hearing and touch callous, |
No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex; |
Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, |
Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning! |
GODS.
LOVER divine and perfect Comrade, |
Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain, |
Thou, thou, the Ideal Man, |
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving, |
Complete in body and dilate in spirit, |
O Death, (for Life has served its turn,) |
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion, |
Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know, |
(To break the stagnant tie—thee, thee to free, O soul,) |
All great ideas, the races' aspirations, |
All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts, |
Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous, |
Or some fair shape I viewing, worship, |
Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night, |
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GERMS.
FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts, |
The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars, |
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped, |
Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,
whatever they may be,
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Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations
and effects,
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Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere,
stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend
my arm and half enclose with my hand,
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That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs
of all.
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THOUGHTS.
OF ownership—as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure
enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;
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Of vista—suppose some sight in arriere through the formative
chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain'd on
the journey,
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(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;) |
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become
supplied—and of what will yet be supplied,
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Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport in
what will yet be supplied.
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WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER.
WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer, |
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, |
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them,
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When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
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How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, |
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, |
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, |
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. |
PERFECTIONS.
ONLY themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, |
As souls only understand souls. |
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O ME! O LIFE!
O ME! O life! of the questions of these recurring, |
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the
foolish,
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Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than
I, and who more faithless?)
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Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew'd,
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Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I
see around me,
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Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me inter-
twined,
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The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these,
O me, O life?
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Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity, |
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. |
TO A PRESIDENT.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, |
You have not learn'd of Nature—of the politics of Nature you
have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
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You have not seen that only such as they are for these States, |
And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from
these States.
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I SIT AND LOOK OUT.
I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame,
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I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done,
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I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate,
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I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous
seducer of young women,
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I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to
be hid, I see these sights on the earth,
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I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and
prisoners,
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I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest,
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I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons
upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
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All these—all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look
out upon,
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See, hear, and am silent. |
TO RICH GIVERS.
WHAT you give me I cheerfully accept, |
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I rendez-
vous with my poems,
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A traveler's lodging and breakfast as I journey through the States,
—why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to
advertise for them?
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For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman, |
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts
of the universe.
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THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES.
SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) |
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, |
The rushing amorous contact high in space together, |
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, |
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, |
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling, |
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull, |
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing, |
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse
flight,
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She hers, he his, pursuing. |
ROAMING IN THOUGHT.
( After reading HEGEL.)
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is
Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
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And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself
and become lost and dead.
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A FARM PICTURE.
THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, |
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding, |
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away. |
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A CHILD'S AMAZE
SILENT and amazed even when a little boy, |
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his
statements,
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As contending against some being or influence. |
THE RUNNER.
ON a flat road runs the well-train'd runner, |
He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs, |
He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs, |
With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd. |
BEAUTIFUL WOMEN.
WOMEN sit or move to and fro, some old, some young, |
The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the
young.
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MOTHER AND BABE.
I SEE the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother, |
The sleeping mother and babe—hush'd, I study them long and
long.
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THOUGHT.
OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness; |
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly
affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those
who do not believe in men.
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VISOR'D.
A MASK, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself, |
Concealing her face, concealing her form, |
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment, |
Falling upon her even when she sleeps. |
THOUGHT.
OF Justice—as if Justice could be any thing but the same ample
law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,
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As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions. |
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GLIDING O'ER ALL.
GLIDING o'er all, through all, |
Through Nature, Time, and Space, |
As a ship on the waters advancing, |
The voyage of the soul—not life alone, |
Death, many deaths I'll sing. |
HAST NEVER COME TO THEE AN HOUR.
HAST never come to thee an hour, |
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles,
fashions, wealth?
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These eager business aims—books, politics, art, amours, |
THOUGHT.
OF Equality—as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances
and rights as myself—as if it were not indispensable to
my own rights that others possess the same.
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TO OLD AGE.
I SEE in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as
it pours in the great sea.
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LOCATIONS AND TIMES.
LOCATIONS and times—what is it in me that meets them all, when-
ever and wherever, and makes me at home?
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Forms, colors, densities, odors—what is it in me that corresponds
with them?
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OFFERINGS.
A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear, |
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and
youths, with offerings.
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TO THE STATES,
To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.
WHY reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? |
What deepening twilight—scum floating atop of the waters, |
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Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol? |
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North,
your arctic freezings!)
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Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that
the President?
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Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for
reasons;
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(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots
we all duly awake,
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South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely
awake.)
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